2023 Opening Day Assigments

[Bertz]

We're probably a little over a week from getting official ones, but I think this is a great early projection from Bryan Smith

 

There are some things I'd quibble with (e.g. Morel seems almost certain to go to Iowa) but I'd guess this is something like 90% right

[craig]

Bryan Smith's projection is very good.

 

Will be some tweaks at the margins.

1. Will both Keegan and Hughes be on rehab, and neither make the roster? If so, will Borucki make it ahead of Kay and Duffey? Who knows.

2. Might one of Strumpf or Slaughter get pushed up to Iowa in place of Quiroz and/or Young? Maybe Manny Rodriguez to Iowa in place of somebody?

3. Down in the A-level, harder to guess. Smith has Didier Vargas starting for South Bend; that's a fair guess, and is entirely plausible. But that might also be anybody from the Horton, Birdsell, Noland, Santana crowd, too.

4. Smith starts all three of those college pitchers Horton, Birdsell, Noland at Myrtle, and Marino Santy and Moreno. Who knows with any of those kinds of guys. Ferris is a long shot, but possible. Brody McCollough might be used as starter? Maybe Oquendo? Guessing is fun, but more guess than confidence, at this point.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Posted this in Musings…AzPhil released the ST assignments. Players will be demoted and promoted before the season but this is an opportunity to open at a high level for some:

 

https://www.thecubreporter.com/2023-cubs-minor-league-camp-rosters

 

Keep in mind that as the Cubs MLB Spring Training roster is reduced, there is a cascading effect throughout Minor League Camp, as some players are moved downward from one level to the next lower level.

 

Also, so far no minor league players have been released, but there will likely be a "batch cut" later this week.

 

Some notables:

 

Crow-Armstrong, Roederer with Iowa

Howard (inactive), Hearn, Alcantara, Pinango, Palencia with Tennessee

Ballesteros, Hernandez with SB

Horton, Adan Sanchez, Mason McGwire, Chris Paciolla, Quintero, Jefferson Rojas, and Joel Machado with MB

 

Ballesteros winning a SB job would be a good start towards becoming a Top 100 prospect this year. He’d be on the same track as Caissie but higher up the defensive spectrum with more contact going in

 

Arizona Phil said yesterday that Ballesteros and Hernández were returned to Myrtle Beach.

[We Got The Whole 9]

Bryan Smith's projection is very good.

 

Will be some tweaks at the margins.

1. Will both Keegan and Hughes be on rehab, and neither make the roster? If so, will Borucki make it ahead of Kay and Duffey? Who knows.

2. Might one of Strumpf or Slaughter get pushed up to Iowa in place of Quiroz and/or Young? Maybe Manny Rodriguez to Iowa in place of somebody?

3. Down in the A-level, harder to guess. Smith has Didier Vargas starting for South Bend; that's a fair guess, and is entirely plausible. But that might also be anybody from the Horton, Birdsell, Noland, Santana crowd, too.

4. Smith starts all three of those college pitchers Horton, Birdsell, Noland at Myrtle, and Marino Santy and Moreno. Who knows with any of those kinds of guys. Ferris is a long shot, but possible. Brody McCollough might be used as starter? Maybe Oquendo? Guessing is fun, but more guess than confidence, at this point.

I'll be annoyed if they don't have Slaughter in Iowa. He's 26 and had almost 400 PA at AA last year. We need to see if he can carry that over to the higher level.

 

Sent from my motorola one 5G UW using Tapatalk

[craig]

Bryan Smith's projection is very good.

 

Will be some tweaks at the margins. ...

2. Might one of Strumpf or Slaughter get pushed up to Iowa in place of [highlight=yellow]Quiroz[/highlight] and/or Young? Maybe Manny Rodriguez to Iowa in place of somebody?

....

 

Quiroz got sold to the Phillies today. :):)

[Bertz]

Bryan Smith's projection is very good.

 

Will be some tweaks at the margins. ...

2. Might one of Strumpf or Slaughter get pushed up to Iowa in place of [highlight=yellow]Quiroz[/highlight] and/or Young? Maybe Manny Rodriguez to Iowa in place of somebody?

....

 

Quiroz got sold to the Phillies today. :):)

 

My other read is that it could be in service of giving Morel everyday ABs and letting Mckinstry break with the MLB club

[craig]

...

My other read is that it could be in service of giving Morel everyday ABs and letting Mckinstry break with the MLB club

 

Very possible. I'd not even noticed that McKinstry was absent from Smith's roster guesses. I'd kinda guess that even if the Cubs cut him, would anybody else pick him up? Wouldn't he just jump at a chance for an Iowa contract, *IF* they were to offer him one?

 

Personally, *IF* they were to send Morel down, I'd rather keep Mastrobuoni up than McKinstry, because I think MM could give competitive AB's and get some hits.

[Bertz]

 

[Hrubes20]

11 minutes ago, Bertz said:

 

Zero issues with Amaya starting at Tennessee.  Ease him back into the game a bit.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

18 minutes ago, Hrubes20 said:

Zero issues with Amaya starting at Tennessee.  Ease him back into the game a bit.

It makes sense with Morel starting at AAA and I’m sure it’ll be a short lived stay at AA but I wish they’d push Strumpf to AAA.

[craig]

I'm good with Strumpf going back to AA for a bit.  If he's ready for Iowa and too good for AA, this gives him a chance to prove that he's too good for it and is ready to promote. 

As a 3-true-outcomes guy obviously getting hits isn't a priority.  But I still kinda feel that if a guy is going to hit enough in the majors to make it work, he probably needs to have an AA average above .234.  Let him go back and prove that he's better than that now, and that he's too good for AA.  

Edited March 28, 2023 by craig

[Bertz]

Strumpf going to Tenn for the 3rd year in a row tells you exactly what the org thinks of him, and personally I'm very much in agreement.

[craig]

Dumb question, but with the new website, have you guys found a way to:

1.  Have it default so that topics with recent entries default to the top? When I go to the "Cubs Minor League Talk" forum, it defaults to 2006-2022 international signings and 2016 Cubs top 50 prospects discussion.  So I need to Sort By > Custom > Last Reply > Last 5 Days each time.  Is there some preference setting I'm missing or need to correct?   

2.  Have the back-button work normally?  I'm using Google Chrome on a Mac. If I click on the assignments discussion, and then his the back button to go back to the panel of topics, it doesn't quite do that, and I get a "Press the reload button to resubmit the data needed to load the page." response.  

[Transmogrified Tiger]

4 minutes ago, craig said:

Dumb question, but with the new website, have you guys found a way to:

1.  Have it default so that topics with recent entries default to the top? When I go to the "Cubs Minor League Talk" forum, it defaults to 2006-2022 international signings and 2016 Cubs top 50 prospects discussion.  So I need to Sort By > Custom > Last Reply > Last 5 Days each time.  Is there some preference setting I'm missing or need to correct?

That is how it's currently sorted, but it looks like a couple old threads were mistakenly pinned with the board software change.  I unpinned them so it should be better now.

[Hrubes20]

39 minutes ago, Bertz said:

Strumpf going to Tenn for the 3rd year in a row tells you exactly what the org thinks of him, and personally I'm very much in agreement.

Same.  Strumpf isn't anywhere near a top 20 prospect in this system for me.  He hasn't made contact even going back to his UCLA days.  Not enough power or defense to overcome it.

[craig]

Thanks, Mogrified.  Yeah, now it auto-lists the new stuff on top.  

And looks like the back button is working correctly, too.  I love it!  

Thanks for what you do in managing all that stuff!  

[craig]

48 minutes ago, Hrubes20 said:

Same.  Strumpf isn't anywhere near a top 20 prospect in this system for me.  He hasn't made contact even going back to his UCLA days.  Not enough power or defense to overcome it.

That said, guys can get better, and for other teams guys do develop (sometimes).  Top 20, obviously absolutely not, in a system that has a bunch of interesting possibilities. 

But the guy has a total of only 796 pro AB.  And not even 80 AB in A-ball before he got rushed up to AA.  That's where I kinda like the idea of having him back in AA again. By keeping the league the same, it's one constant in the evaluation.  If he's hitting .230 again, we know he's not developing in any dramatic way.  If he's hitting .280, and his K-rate is down, then we know he's the thing that has changed in some way, not the league level.  

One of the most common reduce-K adjustments, of course, is to swing earlier in the count.  I expect he'll likely do that early on, at the expense of a reduced walk-rate.  

[Hrubes20]

19 hours ago, craig said:

That said, guys can get better, and for other teams guys do develop (sometimes).  Top 20, obviously absolutely not, in a system that has a bunch of interesting possibilities. 

But the guy has a total of only 796 pro AB.  And not even 80 AB in A-ball before he got rushed up to AA.  That's where I kinda like the idea of having him back in AA again. By keeping the league the same, it's one constant in the evaluation.  If he's hitting .230 again, we know he's not developing in any dramatic way.  If he's hitting .280, and his K-rate is down, then we know he's the thing that has changed in some way, not the league level.  

One of the most common reduce-K adjustments, of course, is to swing earlier in the count.  I expect he'll likely do that early on, at the expense of a reduced walk-rate.  

It's certainly possible, but it doesn't happen often enough to consider it a legit outcome at this point.  This is especially true for a 25 year old like Strumpf.  Even further, the biggest success stories (Judge/Springer/etc) all had prodigious power to fall back on.  He doesn't have that.  

I actually should have bumped that back to my top 40 for Strumpf.  He's org filler for me.  

[Bertz]

1 hour ago, Hrubes20 said:

It's certainly possible, but it doesn't happen often enough to consider it a legit outcome at this point.  This is especially true for a 25 year old like Strumpf.  Even further, the biggest success stories (Judge/Springer/etc) all had prodigious power to fall back on.  He doesn't have that.  

I actually should have bumped that back to my top 40 for Strumpf.  He's org filler for me.  

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Arizona Phil also saying what Greg Z said earlier that Ryan Jensen is going back to AA:

 

[CubinNY]

I got tickets for a Smokies game when they come to Montgomery. I don't like the six game series thing. I'd rather see them more than once as the rosters change during the season, but I get why they are doing it. 

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Official opening day Iowa roster:

 

[Tim]

2 minutes ago, CaliforniaRaisin said:

Official opening day Iowa roster:

 

I may like the Iowa pen better. Well, not really, but I like some of those guys better.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Slaughter did make Iowa after all.  Of course, he has to fight Morel and Bote for time at 3B, Mervis and Young for time at 1B plus a couple OF for time at DH, but that's a testament to the depth that's there.

[Hrubes20]

20 minutes ago, Tim said:

I may like the Iowa pen better. Well, not really, but I like some of those guys better.

Where is Ben Leeper?  Did I miss that he got hurt?